There is little difference between women in their 20s and 40s now, actress
Helen McCrory has said, as they swap “age-appropriate cardigans” for gyms,
diets and great clothes.

McCrory, the 44-year-old wife of Homeland actor Damian Lewis, said women her age no longer dressed as they did in the 1950s, as they embrace an “interesting” part of their lives.

The actress, who played a married mother sexually obsessed with a younger colleague in a television drama, told the Independent she had received letters from older women thanking her for her “refreshing” risqué scenes.

She added women in their 40s were increasingly considered “hot” these days, saying: “They don't dress like people did in the 1950s, in age-appropriate cardigans. They have diets and the gym and great clothes.

“There's not that, 'My God, there's such a difference between a 20-year-old and a 40-year-old!'"

“Actually, I'm looking forward to being 50," she added, "Because to me that's when a woman is at the pinnacle of her femininity and her womanhood."